


Cartography

by cheesethesecond



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Age Regression/De-Aging, Captain America: The First Avenger, Ficlet Collection, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Prompt Fic, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 06:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7088659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheesethesecond/pseuds/cheesethesecond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Points on the map of a life lived in tandem.</p><p>[A collection of Steve and Bucky ficlets.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Coney Island

**Author's Note:**

> This is really just a place for me to collect all of the Cap ficlets I've written since Winter Soldier over the course of two blogs. I'm cleaning them up as I track them all down, and plan on posting about once a week until I've reached the present day, and can add more as I write them. Naturally, I gave it a pseudo-pretentious title because I am a ~writer~ and I do what I want. The prompt and original date of the fic will be noted at the top of each ficlet. Tags and rating will update as I go along. Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written May 2014, Prompt: Steve taking a more recovered Bucky to Coney Island

“This is ridiculous,” Bucky says, pulling his cap down over his eyes.

Steve sighs, nods. “Okay. You know we don’t have to, if you don’t want.”

It hadn’t been a great morning. Nothing dramatic—no locked doors or knives or screaming—but Bucky refused to eat breakfast, insisted on wearing a jacket though it was eighty degrees outside, chewed on his fingernails until they bled and asked Steve six times when he’d be ready to go. Steve might’ve called the whole thing off, if not for the determined set of Bucky’s shoulders as he stalked to the front door, the half-manic glint in his eyes as he asked, “You coming or what?”

“It’s bullshit,” Bucky murmurs. “$9 for one ride. They’re robbing us blind.”

“It’s nothing, Buck. We have the money.”

Bucky swipes his hat off, tugs at his hair. “Yeah, I know we do.”

“Like I said, we don’t have to—”

“I _want_ to,” Bucky says through clenched teeth. “Been talking about this for months. You’ve waited long enough.”

“Not like we can’t wait another day. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I want a hot dog. Now.”

Steve smiles. “C’mon, then.”

They walk side-by-side down the boardwalk, close enough that Steve can bump Bucky’s hip whenever a screaming kid or the brush of an unfamiliar arm makes him flinch. They stop to play a horse racing game, which Bucky wins by a landslide, giving an unrestrained little whoop as his plastic horse bobs over the finish line. They move down the line, try their hand at breaking plates with baseballs. Steve breaks three, wins a medium stuffed animal; Bucky breaks everything, including the structure supporting the plates—it topples with a mighty _crash_.

“Holy shit, dude,” the teenager manning the booth says, gaping at Bucky as he fidgets and slinks away, out of Steve’s sight. “Pick literally anything you want, oh my god. Does he wanna go again? We can set it back up and he can go again.”

“Thanks anyway,” Steve says, grabbing a small stuffed giraffe and taking off after Bucky.

He finds Bucky a few minutes later, sitting on a bench beside two hot dogs and two sodas, slumped over with his arms on his knees, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Steve puts a hand on his heaving back and grabs one of the sodas, takes a drink—Mountain Dew. Bucky’s something of a fiend. “Like a shot of sugar straight to the brain,” he likes to say, smirking around his straw.

Bucky lets out a heavy breath, peeks one eye open. “What, I don’t get anything bigger than that?”

Steve laughs. “I can take it back.”

“Gimme the damn thing. I earned it.”

Bucky stands and snatches the giraffe from Steve, steels himself and heads over to a little girl a few yards away. She’s hitching with sobs, staring mournfully at the popped balloon sagging from her wrist, her mother struggling to comfort her. Bucky takes a knee beside them. Steve doesn’t hear what he says, but the girl wipes her eyes and giggles, and Bucky smiles back, offers her the giraffe with his metal hand. She reaches out without fear, takes the toy from him gently; her mother watches Bucky with shining, grateful eyes, and Steve’s heart feels close to bursting.

Bucky shoves his hands in his pockets and returns to Steve. He ducks his head, briefly bashful, before squinting out at the old wooden roller coaster in the distance. “Good to see some things haven’t changed.”

“There’d be one hell of an uproar, if they ever tore her down.” Steve finishes his hot dog, tosses his soda, wipes his hands on his shirt. “Wanna go?”

“You gonna hurl on me again?”

Steve shrugs. “Only one way to find out.”

Bucky grins at him, bright and easy, and they stroll off together towards the Cyclone.


	2. Cookies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written November 2014, Prompt: Cookies

When Bucky’s home on his first leave, his Ma makes him cookies.

The smell hits him as soon as he walks through the door: chocolate, and warm sugar. Ma and Becca make a big fuss over him, pinch his arms, smooth and tug at his uniform. His father claps him on the shoulder. They talk over one another at dinner, firing question after question at Bucky, who smiles through it all, trying to match their enthusiasm. He barely tastes his food, for how badly he wants to get one of those cookies in his mouth.

“I’m proud of you, soldier,” his father says as they clear the table, and Bucky nods solemnly. He knows he’s a good soldier, a crack shot with a steady hand and a sharp mind, and the Army will reward him in the only way it knows how: by heaping more responsibility upon him. And Bucky’s not afraid of responsibility—he’s more sure of himself when he’s got a job to do and someone to lead—but standing here in his uniform, under his father’s roof, full of his mother’s cooking, he doesn’t quite feel like the good soldier he should, can’t let himself bask in the glow of his family’s praise. They’ve taken care of him his whole life, and he can’t reconcile that with the way he’s feeling now, surrounded by warmth and sweetness and dressed for war.

“Can you wrap them up for me?” Bucky asks when his Ma offers him the plate of cookies. “Gotta make another stop.”

He lets himself into Steve’s apartment—not Bucky’s any longer, though he still has a key—and listens to Steve rustling around in the bedroom. He thinks maybe he should call out before Steve comes barreling into the room, startled and keyed up for a fight, but then the bedroom door opens and Bucky blurts out, “Close your eyes.”

“Huh? Buck, is that you?” Steve takes a step into the room. “I didn’t know—”

“Just stop for a second, will ya?” Bucky says, and Steve must pick up on the weird crackle of desperation in his voice, because he stops dead in his tracks. “Close your eyes. Please.”

Steve does. “What’s goin’ on?” he asks, but there’s a smile tugging at his lips, and he’s bouncing a little on his toes. “C’mon, Buck, I get to see you for the first time in months and I can’t even _see_ you?”

“Be patient, I got a surprise for you.” Bucky unwraps the cookies. He knows it’s ridiculous, that Steve will eventually open his eyes and see Bucky in his uniform and the weight of it will settle around them, what Bucky is now, what Steve is not. He can’t help that. But he can keep them here, suspend them in this moment a while longer, both of them light on anticipation, not quite of the world.

“Open your mouth,” Bucky says, and Steve tilts his head back and laughs, obeys with an exaggerated _ahhhh_ , like a child at the doctor. Bucky breaks a cookie in half, puts one piece gently on Steve’s tongue and the other in his own mouth. It’s as good as he expected, but not quite as good as the delight on Steve’s face, the surprised _mmmm_ from low in his throat. Bucky closes his eyes, too, wanting to share the moment fully, everything tunneling down to the tingle of sugar on his lips and the tug of awareness that isn’t touch or smell or sound but a _knowing_ , a familiarity of Steve beyond any sense. He wants all his joy and comfort to belong to Steve; he knows he’ll have no use for either overseas. He wants to share whatever sweetness he can, because he won’t be able to much longer.

He wants to tell Steve all this, but when he opens his eyes, Steve’s already looking at him, and Bucky is a soldier, a good soldier, and the taste in his mouth is a bitter one.


	3. Childhood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written November 2014, Prompt: Childhood

Despite Steve’s insistence that he’s absolutely _terrible_ with babies, Nat and Sam leave him alone with Bucky.

(“Just to get supplies,” Sam reassures him. “You won’t even know we’re gone.”

“Do you even know what to buy?” Steve asks, his voice reaching a panicked pitch he didn’t know existed, and would not admit to later.

“Dude, I have three little sisters.”

Steve rounds on Natasha. “And what’s your excuse?”

She shrugs. “It’s come up,” she says, and doesn’t bother elaborating.)

He has trouble thinking of the squirmy child in his arms as Bucky, at first—and _god_ , he’d forgotten how terrifying it was to hold a baby, how they were always so much heavier than he expected, how they writhed around with no regard for how easily Steve could crush them between his hands—but there’s no denying that flop of brown curls, those mischievous grey eyes, that chin dimple. He sets Bucky gingerly on the floor, sits awkward and cross-legged in front of him, and Bucky regards him with a serious intensity that has Steve reeling, wondering if, somehow, the Winter Soldier was locked inside Bucky’s child brain, warping his baby-soft thoughts with flashes of torture, knives and blood, electricity, and Steve’s going to be _sick_ —

Except then, Bucky giggles, topples over onto his side and crawls off towards the couch, where he proceeds to babble earnest nonsense at a pillow.

Steve lets him be for a while, tries to settle his racing heart, to process this like a rational adult (except what, exactly, is rational about his best friend turning, entirely unexplained, into an infant? What’s rational about Bucky showing up on his doorstep so many months after DC? What’s rational about Bucky even being alive, about _Steve_ being alive? What, in Steve’s entire life, makes any goddamn sense whatsoever?), until Bucky starts fussing, looking around for Steve and holding his arms up in the air, his bottom lip wobbling. Steve hoists Bucky up and tucks him against his chest, and Bucky points at the ceiling.

“Fan,” Steve says, and Bucky smiles. He points into the corner of the room. “Television,” Steve says, and Bucky scrunches up his nose. He points out the window. “Sun,” Steve says.

“Uh,” Bucky says. He pats Steve’s forehead.

“Steve,” Steve says.

“Seeee,” Bucky says.

“Bucky,” Steve says, and Bucky grins, a carefree, luminous thing that has Steve thinking of dance halls and Ferris wheels. “Bucky,” he says again, and Bucky shrieks with laughter, clenching his tiny fists in Steve’s shirt and tossing his head back, and suddenly Steve’s eyes are prickling with tears, and his knees go weak, and he lands on the couch with a heavy _thump_ that has Bucky giggling even more, bouncing in Steve’s arms, and Steve buries his face in Bucky’s downy hair and sobs, “ _Bucky._ ”

“Bahhhh,” Bucky says, snuggling in, content to gum on Steve’s shoulder while Steve shudders and gulps air and tries to stave off his inevitable meltdown. Eventually, Bucky starts whining, pushing at Steve’s chest, red-faced and teary-eyed, and Steve doesn’t know if he can do this, doesn’t know if he can hold himself together long enough to comfort Bucky. Doesn’t know what he’ll do if they can’t fix this. Doesn’t know what he’ll do if they can, if they even _should_ , if they should send him back to the nightmares or let him be, be _this_ , this child delighting in the sound of his own name.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said you were terrible with babies,” Natasha says, coming out of nowhere and plucking Bucky from Steve’s arms. Bucky whimpers and buries his face in Natasha’s neck. “He wasn’t kidding, was he?” she coos at him. “No he wasn’t. We’ve got two big babies now, don’t we?”

There’s a crash in the hallway as Sam drops his bags and rushes into the room, wide-eyed and obviously expecting to see baby Steve alongside baby Bucky in some state of catastrophe. He collapses sideways against the wall, hand to his heart. “Don’t _do_ that, Nat.”

“You picked a hell of a time for a breakdown,” Natasha says, bouncing Bucky on her hip.

Steve buries his face in his hands. “What am I supposed to do?”

“What you’ve been doing,” Sam says, sitting on the arm of the couch and patting Steve’s back. “Keep him happy. Try and fix it.”

“Look at him, Sam,” Steve says. “He _is_ happy. How can I take that away from him?”

“You think he wants to stay like this forever? Bullshit.”

Steve shakes his head. “But he’s _happy_.”

“And you think he’ll never be happy again?” Natasha asks. “He came to you, Rogers. Didn’t think you gave up so easily.”

Steve bristles, glares at Natasha, and Bucky peers over at him, reaches out with one hand. “Seee,” he says, opening and closing his fist. Steve holds his hand out, and Bucky wraps his fingers around one of Steve’s and sighs.

“Alright,” Steve says, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Alright. Call Bruce, call Tony, call…whoever. Let’s fix it.”


	4. Traps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written November 2014, Prompt: Traps

Natasha prides herself on her readiness. She’s seen enough in her life to realize that the only way to be prepared for anything is to prepare for everything. There's no use in speculating too much—as soon as you think you _know_ what you’re in for, you’re usually done for—but she can’t say a whole lot surprises her anymore. She’s sharp, quick on her feet, the best at what she does. She’s not easily caught off her guard.

When she gets a text from Steve that reads, simply, _HELP_ , she finds herself uncharacteristically unsettled. The message is startlingly direct for a guy who has, on multiple occasions, fought himself unconscious before calling in for backup. (Plus, as quickly as Steve has adapted to new technology, he’s never been fond of using all-caps. _Feels kinda rude, like I’m yelling_ , he’d told her.) She shoots off a message to Clint, then runs through a quick list of possible scenarios while she rides the elevator up. _HYDRA. Alien attack. Bucky reverting back to his Winter Soldier programming_. That last one leaves a lump in her throat, but she swallows it down. Another thing she’s learned—emotion is vulnerability, and has no place in battle.

(It never used to be a problem for her.)

Natasha meets Clint on his floor, and they check their weapons as they ride the elevator to Steve’s. “You sweep the floor, neutralize any additional threats,” she says. “I’ll find Rogers.”

She takes a deep breath, clears her mind. When the elevator door dings open, she’s ready to kill. Clint presses himself against the wall and slips out of sight, and Natasha draws her gun, prowls, lethal and silent, into the common area.

There, she finds something she couldn’t have prepared for: two of the bravest, most dangerous men she knows, standing on kitchen chairs, one of them holding a broom and grimacing at her, the other scowling at the ground in what Natasha can only describe as a pout.

“Uh, hey Nat,” Steve says, lowering the broom sheepishly. “Thanks for coming.”

“Rogers, you’ve got about three seconds to explain what the _hell_ is going on here,” Natasha grits through her teeth, gun still at the ready.

“Listen, I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have texted you, Bucky got a hold of my phone and—”

“Oh, _sure_ , blame this on me,” Bucky spits. “If it wasn’t for you, this whole mess would’ve been over _hours_ ago.”

“One,” Natasha says.

“Put your gun down, Nat,” Steve says, “it’s not—”

“Are you _nuts_?” Bucky says. “Don’t you dare put your gun down, Romanoff, you know it’s just waiting for us to—”

“It’s just, there’s something…and we tried to, I mean…it must’ve escaped from one of the labs, it’s not—”

Natasha clenches her jaw. “ _Two_.”

“There’s a huge fucking rodent somewhere on this floor,” Bucky Barnes, decorated WWII sniper and legendary assassin, says, unblinking, his voice flat, “and we need you to get rid of it.”

Natasha absolutely refuses to laugh. This is unacceptable, and they need to understand that. She bites her lip, composes herself, and lowers the gun. “You called me here to kill a mouse.”

“It’s not a mouse,” Steve says, a little manic. “It’s so much bigger than a mouse.”

“I wanna shoot it, but Steve said no,” Bucky says.

Natasha rests a hand on her hip. “You ever think of setting a trap? Instead of, you know, calling in a hit on it.”

“I just _said_ Steve won’t let me kill it.”

“It probably belongs to the scientists down on eighty-two, Buck. And it’s not hurting anything, it’s just…” Steve trails off, apparently unable to come up with a single thing the mutant rodent may or may not be doing.

Natasha smirks. “You boys are from Brooklyn, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“They weren’t this big back then. They’re not supposed to be this big _now_.”

Clint slinks up beside her with his bow drawn. “Everything alright, Tasha?”

“There’s been a tragedy in here,” Natasha says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “New York’s finest have been defeated by a rat.”

“It’s not _natural_ ,” Steve begs.

Clint laughs, but there’s something strained about it. His eyes skitter around the room. “Seriously? Scared of a rat, huh?” He lowers his bow, but keeps the arrow in his hand, shuffles over to Bucky’s chair and looks about two seconds from jumping up beside him. “Hilarious. You guys are the worst.”

Bucky kicks at his hand. “Shut the hell up, Barton.”

“Well, you’ve got a metal arm, don’t you? What are you waiting for? Go strangle the son of a bitch.”

“Have I slipped into Russian or something? Can anybody hear me? For the last time: Steve. Won’t. Let. Me. Kill—”

“I’m starting to get embarrassed for you,” Natasha says. “You do know how sad this is, right?”

The tips of Steve’s ears turn bright red. “Yes,” he says. “Now get rid of it please.”

Natasha finds the rat; it _is_ a little bigger than normal, but not quite the monstrosity Steve made it out to be. When she takes it back to the lab on eighty-two, the scientists nearly fall over themselves with relief. She, admittedly, finds that a little disconcerting. She’ll make sure to have words with Stark about it.

— —

The next morning, Steve stumbles out of bed and finds a large grey cat grooming itself on their kitchen table. There’s a note taped beside it: _For your rodent problem. From Russia, with Love. XOXO :)_

“This is your fault,” Bucky says, coming up behind him. The cat meows and nudges Bucky’s hand.

Steve blinks at the cat. “Not sure how it’s gonna help. I think the rat was bigger than this.”

Bucky hoists the cat under one arm and carries it back to the bedroom. “I don’t care. We’re keeping it.”

“Whatever you say, Buck,” Steve says, and follows.


	5. Captured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written February 2015, Prompt: Bucky's and the Howling Commando's time as captured prisoners

“Would you sit _down_ , kid?” Dugan says, his back propped up against the bars of their cage, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. He looks relaxed, but Bucky knows better, can hear the tension in his voice.

Bucky shakes his head, grits his teeth, continues pacing. There’s not much room in the pen, but he’s claimed a little patch of floor for himself, might as well be trying to wear it down walking back and forth, back and forth, stopping every so often to bend over and hack, coughing heavy and wet, reaching out to grab the bars until he can breathe again.

“I mean it, Barnes,” Dugan says. “We didn’t risk our asses with that stunt today for you to pace yourself to death.”

Bucky won’t tell Dugan that’s why he’s so worked up. Whatever nastiness that’s shacked up in his chest (pneumonia, of course it’s pneumonia, of course Bucky knows it’s pneumonia because he’s seen pneumonia every winter since he was seven because of Steve, Steve, _Steve_ , and Bucky has to double over and gasp for air again), it made one hell of a racket this morning, and Bucky could barely stand, let alone haul around those goddamn HYDRA weapons all day. He’d taken a walloping for it, doesn’t know exactly what Dugan and Jones and the rest did, but there was an accident Bucky knows wasn’t an accident, and it’s scaring the shit out of him, what might happen because of it.

“He’s right, Sarge,” Jones says. He’s sitting cross-legged beside Dugan, tracing something in the dust with his finger. “Settle down. Take a rest. Ain’t nothing you can do about anything in here.”

Bucky shakes his head, hears a door opening somewhere he can’t see and twists his hands around the bars, strains to listen for the nauseating sound of boots on concrete. They’ve been taking guys out of cages, one every couple of days, and none of them have come back. Bucky can’t figure out the pattern, who gets taken and why. He’s sure if he could figure it out, if he could just _understand_ , then he could keep it from happening to his guys. Keep them out of sight, out of mind, although that’s going to be difficult because they’re _idiots_ who can’t keep their mouths shut, can’t stop throwing themselves in front of Bucky like it’s their job.

It’s not. They’re _his_ men. His job. He’ll keep them safe. He _will_.

“Shhh.” Dugan puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky jumps, didn’t realize Dugan had moved behind him. Didn’t realize he’d been muttering. “Easy, Buck. Easy. Why don’t you—”

But Bucky hears it, then: keys jangling, heels clicking. He rests his forehead against one of the bars and takes a few deep breaths, coughs, takes a few more, glares at his hands and wills them to stop shaking. Dugan sighs, squeezes his shoulder, and says, “Up and alert, gentlemen, Fritz is on the move.”

It’s been two days since they took someone (or maybe three? Bucky’s having trouble remembering, they got him pretty good in the back of the head earlier and thinking too hard makes him see stars). They’re going to take someone right now, Bucky knows it, and he lifts his head, straightens his shoulders, clenches his hands into fists at his sides. They’re not going to take his men. He’s going to make sure of it. He will protect them.

That’s his job. It always has been.


	6. Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written March 2015, Prompt: accidental baby acquisition

“What do we do?” Bucky asks.

Steve holds the squalling child at arm’s length. “I don’t know.”

“ _Why_ , exactly, did you agree to watch Pepper’s niece if you’re so terrible with babies?”

“I don’t know. It was last minute. She was desperate.”

“Steve. What do we _do_?”

“I don’t _know_ , Buck. I don’t know! You were the one with little sisters.”

Bucky blinks. “I had sisters?” Steve gapes at him, and Bucky smirks. “Kidding. Sorry. Too soon?”

Steve snaps his mouth shut and glares at Bucky. “You’re an as—” He glances down at the baby and winces. “A…butthead.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “A butthead.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m hurt, Stevie. I’m real wounded here.”

Steve ignores him, holds the baby closer, sighs as she nuzzles into his chest and quiets a little. “Well, uh. Okay.”

“Should we call Sam? Sam knows everything, right?”

“I think Sam’s getting a little tired of us calling him,” Steve says. Natasha had been the one to suggest that. _Maybe you could tone it down with the whole ‘Sam Wilson fix my entire life’ thing_ , she said to Steve over coffee. _He’s good, but he’s not that good_.

“Can you warm a bottle up?” Steve asks. “In the microwave, you just—”

“ _Steve_. I know how to work a goddamn microwave. I haven’t starved to death yet, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Right.” Steve blushes, rubs the baby’s back. “Right, I just…I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you use it.”

“Was trying to be subtle about it. No offense, I love your cooking, but sometimes a guy just wants to nuke a burrito.”

Bucky warms up the bottle and returns to find Steve walking the baby in circles, singing “Ring Around the Rosie” while she sucks her thumb and pats at Steve’s chest.

“See? She just wanted to be held in your big manly arms,” Bucky says, handing the bottle over. “You know that song’s about the plague, right?”

“Shhhh,” Steve says. The baby—Morgan, he remembers—takes the bottle and hums, content. “We’re fine.”

“Yeah.” Bucky reaches out to touch Morgan’s soft hair with a metal finger, then pulls away, thinking better of it.

Steve frowns. “You wanna hold her?”

Bucky shakes his head, takes a step back. “No way.”

“You could.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Pepper left her with us. She obviously trusts you.”

Bucky shakes his head again, more forceful this time. He stares down at his hands, holds them out like he’s inspecting them, then sighs, and smiles tentatively at Steve. “Let’s work up to it, huh?”

“Yeah, alright. As long as you don’t think—”

“I don’t. I’m good.”

“Sure?”

“Promise.”

Steve smiles. “Good.”

“Good.” Bucky runs a hand through his hair. “Should take a picture of this, though. Captain America with a baby. Folks’ll lose their minds.”

“How about we just keep this between us?”

“Aw, you’re no fun.” Bucky comes up behind Steve, rests his chin on Steve’s shoulder. Morgan smiles up at him around her bottle, and Bucky smiles back. “Dunno what you’re talking about, not knowing with to do with kids. You could go adopt yourself a brood right now and be just fine.”

Steve laughs. “Let’s work up to it, huh?”


	7. Sweater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written March 2015, Prompt: Post no-good-very-bad-day cuddles & Wearing the other’s sweater

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOPS I FORGOT I WAS DOING THESE FOR A WHILE. Sorry about the long wait :/

Steve hasn’t seen Bucky in four days, and he’s starting to worry.

This happens, sometimes. Bucky starts feeling cramped, suffocated, too much restlessness itching under his skin and too strong a desire to get something under his hands and _squeeze_ , and he bolts. He’s never gone for long, and he always comes back, and Steve doesn’t panic anymore when he finds Bucky’s bedroom empty and his window open.

But still, he worries. And wonders.

Sometimes Bucky tells him, after. _Just wanted to walk down by the river, clear my head,_ he’ll say. Or, _Took a drive. Filled up the bike for you_. Or, once, _Chechnya._ Sometimes he doesn’t say anything at all. Steve worries either way—there’s not much else he can do. His pleas for Bucky to stop, or stay, or join the team, go eternally unheard.

So he does what he can.

He finds Bucky on the couch in the early hours of the morning, pressed up against the armrest and tucked into himself. His hair is wet, and Steve wonders if it’s from the rain, or if Bucky showered. He grabs a sweatshirt off his floor just in case. They’re not allowed to be cold anymore, neither of them. Steve won’t allow it.

“Hey there,” he says, and Bucky looks up, nods. Acknowledgement is a good sign. “Doing alright?”

“Sure,” Bucky says, his voice hoarse, and Steve doesn’t like _that_ at all.

“You cold?”

Bucky nods again, so Steve tosses him the sweatshirt. Bucky pulls it over his head, his arms. It snags briefly on the metal plating, and he winces, grabs the sleeve in his fingers, tugs it free and sighs.

Steve kneels by the couch. “Safe travels?”

Bucky shakes his head—not an answer to Steve’s questions, but a rejection of it entirely. _Not tonight_.

“Alright.” Steve moves to stand, but Bucky makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Can I touch you?” Steve asks. The first few days after he moved in, Bucky had been adamant about no one touching him. Though that moratorium has been lifted, Steve still likes to ask.

Bucky nods. Steve crawls up onto the couch, tugs Bucky to his side and kisses the top of his head. His hair smells floral and clean. _Shower, then_.

“There’s some blood on the bathroom doorknob,” Bucky says, and Steve swallows, closes his eyes.

“Are you hurt?”

“No. It’s not mine.”

“Okay.” Steve takes a steadying breath. “Okay. Are we…do we need to…?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Heard about a guy. Was getting too close.”

“To what?”

“To you.”

“You _heard_ about a guy? From who?”

Bucky shrugs.

Steve knows the conversation is over for now, and tries not to think about it too hard. “But everything’s alright now?”

“Sure.”

Steve pulls him closer, rubs his hand down Bucky’s arm. “Wanna put something on TV?”

“No.”

“Want something to eat?”

“No.”

“Buck, what do you—”

Bucky growls, knocks his head against Steve’s shoulder, more exasperated than angry. “ _This_ ,” he says, burying his nose in Steve’s neck.

“Oh,” Steve says, smiling against Bucky’s forehead. “Yeah, alright.”


	8. Birdseed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written May 2015, Prompt: i wish you would write a fic about steve and sam feeding birds together with seeds held within steve's thigh zippers

“You call for an extraction?” Sam asks, because it’s really all he can think to say. He’s still trying to process what, exactly, he’s looking at.

Steve nods. The pigeon near his knee coos, and he tosses another handful of birdseed in its direction. “Unless you can fly us out of here.”

Sam shakes his head. “Wings are down.”

“Natasha should be here in ten.”

“Listen, man,” Sam says carefully. “Do we need to talk about this?”

“About what?”

Sam forces himself not to laugh. He doesn’t know what this is, could be some sort of breakdown thing, some bizarre coping mechanism, and Sam won’t begrudge another man whatever gets him through the day. It’s just…Steve is sitting cross-legged on a rooftop not ten minutes after taking down a pack of HYDRA goons, and he’s _surrounded_ by birds. Pigeons. Doves. Jays. Finches. He’s tossing out birdseed like he pulled it from thin air, and Sam does _not_ understand.

“ _This_ ,” he says, waving his arm, which spooks a few of the birds. “Can’t take the New York outta the boy and all, I get that, but seriously. What’s going on here? You keep that stuff on you at all times?”

“Oh.” Steve looks around like he’s just now noticing _how many birds_ are on the rooftop. “Clint and Tony thought they'd be funny and start hiding weird stuff in these thigh pockets. Snacks. Photos of themselves. Condoms. Could never manage to get all the birdseed out, but the birds were happy for it, so.” He shrugs. “My mom used to like feeding birds. Kinda reminds me of home.”

“Pulling birdseed out of the thigh pockets of your superhero costume reminds you of home?”

Steve laughs, the first honest laugh Sam’s gotten out of him in a while, and Sam smiles. Happiness looks good on Steve. “You take what you can get, I guess.”

“You’re weird, you know that?” Sam sits down next to Steve. A few of the birds flutter away, only to inch back towards Sam and Steve, bobbing their heads and waiting. Sam drags a hand over his face. “Like majorly, epically weird. I’m not sure I should keep hanging out with you, because your weird is gonna rub off on me and I will lose _all_ my game.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Steve says, reaching into his thigh pocket and pulling out a handful of birdseed. He offers it to Sam.

Sam takes it with a sigh, laughs when a bird flies up to perch on his shoulder. “Hey, buddy.”

“See? Where else are you gonna find friends like these?”

The comms crackle with static. “Please tell me Steve isn’t going all Home Alone 2 on us again,” Natasha says. “I told Sarah Jane from legal that Steve was cool so she’d go out with him, and I’m starting to look like a liar.”

“Starting to, huh?” Steve asks.

The pigeon coos in response.

_Friends like these_ , Sam thinks, offering his hand to the bird on his shoulder. _Yeah, where else?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is unfamiliar with my weird obsession with the thigh zippers on Steve's Avengers uniform: [documentation](http://cheesethesecond.tumblr.com/tagged/my%20legacy%20is%20thigh%20zippers).

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi [on Tumblr](http://cheesethesecond.tumblr.com)!


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